 Chapter 8, Part 2 of Hypatia. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Eugene Smith. Hypatia by Charles Kingsley. Chapter 8, The East Wind. Part 2. Quote, It is false, blasphemous. The scriptures cannot lie. End quote. Quite a voice from the farther end of the room. It was Philemon's. He had been listening to the whole lecture, and yet not so much listening as watching in bewilderment the beauty of the speaker, the grace of her action, the melody of her voice. And last, but not least, the maze of her rhetoric, as it glittered before his mind's eye like a cobweb diamond with dew. A sea of new thoughts and questions, if not of doubts, came rushing in at every sentence on his acute Greek intellect. All the more plentifully and irresistibly, because his speculative faculty was as yet altogether waste and empty, undefended by any scientific culture from the inrushing flood. For the first time in his life, he found himself face to face with the root questions of all thought. Quote, What am I and where? End quote. Quote, What can I know? End quote. And in the half terrified struggle with him, he had all but forgotten the purpose for which he entered the lecture hall. He felt that he must break the spell. Was she not a heathen and a false prophetess? Here was something tangible to attack. And half an indignation at the blasphemy, half an order to force himself into action, he had sprung up and spoken. A yellow rose. Quote, Turn the monk out! End quote. Quote, Throw the rustic through the window! End quote. Quite a dozen young gentlemen. Several of the most valiant began to scramble over the benches up to him, and Philemon was congratulating himself on the nearer approach of a glorious martyrdom when Hapati's voice, calm and silvery, stifled the tumult in a moment. Quote, Let the youth listen, gentlemen. He's but a monk and a plebeian, and knows no better. He has been taught thus. Sit here quietly, and perhaps we may be able to teach him otherwise. End quote. And without interrupting, even by a change of tone, the threat of her discourse, she continued. Quote, Listen then to a passage from the sixth book of the Iliad, in which last night I seemed to see glimpses of some mighty mystery. You know it well, yet I will read it to you. The very sound and pop of that great verse may tune our souls to a fit key for the reception of lofty wisdom. For, well said, Abhamnan the teacher, that, quote, the soul consistent first of harmony and rhythm, and ere it gave itself to the body, had listened to the divine harmony. Therefore it is that, when, after having come into a body, it hears such melodies as most preserve the divine footstep of harmony. It embraces such, and recollects from them that divine harmony, and is impelled to it, and finds its home in it, and shares of it as much as it can share. End quote. And therewith fell on Philemon's ear for the first time the mighty thunder roll of Homer's verse. Quote. So spoke the stewardess, but Hector rushed from the house the same way back down stately streets, through the broad city, to the scion gates, whereby he must go forth toward the plain. There running toward him came Andromache, his ample-douard wife, Etayon's child. Etayon the great-hearted, he who dwelt in theme under Placos, in the woods of Placos, ruling over Achylic men. His daughter wedded Hector Brazenheld, and met him then, and with her came a maid, who bore in arms a playful-hearted babe and infant still, akin to some fair star, only a well-loved child of Hector's house, whom he had named Scamandrios. But the rest asked the annex, because his sire alone upheld the wheel of Ileon the Holy. He smiled in silence, looking on his child, but she stood close to him, with many tears, and hung upon his hand, and spoke, and called him. Quote, My hero, thy great heart will wear thee out, thou piteous not thine infant child, nor me, the hapless, soon to be thy widow. The Greeks will slay thee, falling one and all upon thee, but to me were sweeter far, having lost thee to die. No cheer to me will come, thanksforth, if thou shalt meet thy fate. Woes only! Mother, have I none, nor sire. For that my sire divine Achilles slew, and wasted utterly the pleasant homes of Kilikfolk and Thebe Loftywald, and slew E. Tyon with a sword, yet spared to strip the dead. All kept his soul from that. Therefore he burnt him in his graven arms, and heaped a mound above him. And around the damsels of the Aegis holding Zeus, the nymphs who haunt the upland planted elms. And seven brothers bred with me in the halls, all in one day went down to Hades there. For all of them swift foot Achilles slew, beside the lazy kind Snow White sheep. And her, my mother, who of late was queen beneath the woods of Places, he brought here among his other spoils. Yet set her free again, receiving ransom, rich and great. But Artemis, whose bow is all her joy, smote her to death within her father's halls. Hector, so thou art father to me now, mother and brother, and husband, fair and strong. Oh, come now, pity me, and stay thou here upon the tower, nor make thy child an orphan, and me thy wife a widow. Range the men here by the fig tree, where the city lies lowest, and where the wall can well be scaled. For here three times the best have tried the assault round either Ajax and a Dominaeus, and round the Atreide both, and Tydeus's son, whether some cunning seer taught them craft, or their own spirit stirred and drove them on." Then spake Tall Hector. With the glancing helm all this too I have watched, my wife. Yet much I hold and dread the scorn of Trojan men and Trojan women, with their trailing shawls. If, like a coward, I should skulk from war. Beside I have no lust to stay, I have learnt I to be bold and lead the van of fight, to win my father and myself a name. For well I know, at heart and in my thought, the day will come when Ilios the Holy shall lie in heaps and priam, and the folk of Ash's beard priam. Perish, all. But yet no woe to come to Trojan men, not even to Hecobie, nor priam king, nor to my brothers, who shall roll in dust, many in fare, beneath the strokes of foes. So moves me as doth Thine, when Thou shall go weeping, led off by some brass-harnessed reek, robbed of the daylight of thy liberty, to weave an Argos at another's loom, or bear the water of Maceus home. Or Hyperia, with unseemly toils, while heavy doom constrains thee, and perchance the folk may say, who see thy tears run down, quote, this was the wife of Hector, best in fight at Ilium, of horse-taming Trojan men, end quote. So will they say, perchance, while unto thee now grief will come, for such a husband's loss who might have warded off the day of thrall. But may this soil be heaped above my corpse before I hear thy shriek and see thy shame, end quote. He spoke and stretched his arms to take the child, but that the child upon his nurse's breast shrank crying, frightened at his father's looks, fearing the brass and crest of horse's hair which waved above the helmet terribly. Then out that father, dear, and mother laughed, and glorious Hector took the helmet off and laid it bleeding on the ground, and kissed his darling child and danced him in his arm, and spoke in prayer to Zeus and all the gods, quote, Zeus and you other gods, O grant that this my child, like me, may grow the champion here, as good in strength and rule with might in Troy that men may say, quote, the boy is better far than was his sire, end quote, when he returns with war, bearing a gory harness, having slain a foeman, at his mother's heart rejoice, thus saying, on the hands of his dear wife, he laid the child, and she received him back in fragrant bosom, smiling through her tears, end quote, quote, such is the myth. Do you fancy that in it Homer meant to hand down to the admiration of ages such earthly common places as a mother's brute affection and the terrors of an infant? Surely the deeper insight of the philosopher may be allowed without the reproach of hencefulness to see in it the adumbration of some deeper mystery. The elect soul, for instance, is not its name, astianics, king of the city, by the fact of its ethereal parentage, the leader and lord of all around it, though it knows it not, a child as yet, it lies upon the fragrant bosom of its mother nature, the nurse and yet the enemy of man. Andromache, as the poet well names her, because she fights with that being when grown to man's estate, whom as a child she nourished. Fair is she, yet unwise, pampering us after the fashion of mothers with weak indulgences, fearing to send us forth into the great realities of speculation, in the pursuit of glory, she would have us while away our prime within the harem and play forever round her knees. And has not the elect soul a father to whom it knows not? Hector, he who is without, unconfined, unconditioned by nature, yet its husband, the all-pervading, plastic soul, informing, organizing, whom men call Zeus the lawgiver, the fire, Osiris the life-giver, whom here the poet has set forth as the defender of the mystic city, the defender of harmony and order and beauty throughout the universe. Apart sits his great father, Priam, the first of existences, father of many sons, the absolute reason, unseen, tremendous, immovable, in distant glory, yet himself amenable to that abysmal unity which Homer calls fate, the source of all which is, yet in itself, nothing, without predicate, unnameable. From it and for it the universal soul thrills through the whole creation, doing the behests of that reason from which it overflowed, unwillingly, into the storm and crowd of material appearances, warring with the brute forces crushing all which is foul and dissonant to itself and clasping to its bosom the beautiful and all wherein it discovers its own reflex, impressing on it its signature, reproducing from it its own likeness, whether star or demon or soul of the elect. And yet, as the poet hints in anthropomorphic language, haunted all the while by sadness, weighed down amid all its labors by the sense of a fate, by the thought of that first one from whom the soul is originally descended, from whom it, and its father, the reason before it, parted themselves when they dared to think and act and assert their own free will. And in the meanwhile, alas, Hector, the father, fights around while his children sleep and feed, and he is away in the wars, though not, know not that they, the individuals, are but parts of him, the universal. And yet at moments, O thrice blessed they whose celestial parentage has made such moments part of their appointed destiny, at moments flashes on the human child the intuition of the unutterable secret in the spangled lorry of the summer night, in the roar of the nile flood of infertility in every way, in the awful depths of the temple shrine, in the wild melodies of old Orphic singers, or before the images of those gods of whose perfect beauty the divine theosophists of Greece caught a fleeting shadow, and with the sudden might of artistic ecstasy smote it, as by an enchanter's wand, into an eternal sleep of snowy stone. And by a vision beautiful and terrible of a force, an energy, a soul, an idea, one, and yet million fold, rushing through all created things, like the wind across a lyre, thrilling the strings into celestial harmony. One life blood through the million veins of the universe of one great unseen heart whose thunderous pulses the mind hears far away, beating forever in the abysmal solitude, beyond the heavens and the galaxies, beyond the spaces and the times, themselves but veins and runnels from its all-teaming sea. Happy, thrice happy, they who once have dared, even though breathless, blinded with tears of awful joy, struck down upon their knees in utter helplessness, as they feel themselves by dead leaves in the wind which sweeps the universe. Happy, they who have dared to gaze, if but for an instant, on the terror of that glorious pageant, who have not, like the young Asteaniacs, clung shrieking to the breast of Mother Nature, scared by the heaven-wide flash of his rainbow crest. Happy, thrice happy, even though their eyeballs blasted by excessive light wither to ashes in their sockets. Were it not a noble end to have seen Zeus and die like semily, burnt up by his glory? Happy, thrice happy, though their mind real from the divine intoxication and the hogs of Searsie and madmen and enthusiasts. Enthusiasts they are, for deity is in them, and they in it. For the time this burden of individuality vanishes, and recognizing themselves as portions of the universal soul, they rise upward, through and beyond that reason from whence the soul proceeds to the fount of all, the ineffable and supreme one. And seeing it become by that act portions of its essence. They speak no more, but it speaks in them, and their whole being transmuted by that glorious sunlight into whose rays they have dared, like the eagle, to gaze without shrinking, becomes an harmonious vehicle for the words of deity, and passive itself utters the secrets of the immortal gods. What wonder if to the brute mass they seen as dreamers? Be it so. Smile, if you will, but ask me not to teach you things unspeakable, above all, sciences, which the word battle of dialectic, the discursive struggles of reason, can never reach, but which must be seen only, and when seen, confess to be unspeakable. Hence, thou disputer of the academy, hence, thou sneering cynic, hence, thou sense worshipping stoic, who fanciest that the soul is to derive her knowledge from those material appearances which she herself creates, hence, and yet, no, stay and sneer, if you will. It is but a little time, a few days longer in this prison house of our degradation, and each thing shall return to its own fountain, a blood drop to the abysmal heart and the water to the river and the river to the shining sea, and the dew drop which fell from heaven shall rise to heaven again, shaking off the dust grains which weighed it down, thawed from the earth-frost which chained it here to herb and sword, upward and upward even through stars and suns, through gods, and through the parents of the gods, and pure through successive lives till it enters nothing, which is the all and finds its home at last. End quote. And the speaker stopped suddenly, her eyes glistening with tears, her whole figure trembling and dilating with rapture. She remained for a moment motionless, gazing earnestly at her audience, as if in hopes of exciting in them and then recovering herself added in a more tender tone, not quite un-next with sadness. End quote. Go now, my pupils, Hypatia has no more for you today. Go now and spare her at least woman as she is, after all, the shame of finding that she has given you too much and lifted the veil of Isis before eyes which are not enough purified to hold the glory of the goddess. Farewell. End quote. She ended and filament, the moment that the spell of her voice was taken off him, sprang up and hurried out through the corridor into the street. So beautiful, so calm and merciful to him, so enthusiastic towards all which was noble, had not she too spoken of the unseen world, of the hope of the immortality, of the conquest of the spirit over the flesh, just as a Christian might have done? Was it a gulf between them so infinite? If so, why had her aspirations awakened Echos in his own heart? Echos too, just since such as the prayers and lessons of the Lora used to awaken. If the fruit was so like must not the root be like also, could that be a counterfeit? That, a minister of Satan in the robes of an angel of light? Light, at least, it was purity, simplicity, courage, earnestness, tenderness, flashed out from eye, lip, gesture, a heathen who disbelieved? What was the meaning of it all? But the finishing stroke yet remained which was to complete the utter confusion of the divine. For before he had gone fifty yards up the street his little friend of the fruit basket whom he had not seen since he vanished under the feet of the mob in the gateway of the theatre clutched him by the arm and burst forth, breathless with running, quote, the gods eat their favors on those who least deserve them. Or of thy madness! Off with you, said Phelaman, who had no mind at the moment to renew his acquaintance with the little porter. But the guardian of parasols kept a firm hold on his sheepskin. Fool! Hypatia herself commands! Yes, you will see her, have speech with her, while I the illuminated, I the appreciating, I the obedient, who for these three years past have groveled in the kettle that the hem of her garment might touch the tip of my little finger. I, I, I... What do you want, madman? She calls for thee in senseid wretch. Theon sent me, breathless at once with running and with envy. Go, favorite of the unjust gods! Who is Theon? Her father, ignorant! He commands thee to be at her house! Here, opposite! Tomorrow, at the third hour! Here, and obey! There they are coming out of the museum and all the parasols will get wrong! Oh, miserable me! And the poor little fellow rushed back again, while Phelaman, at his wits' end between dread and longing, started off and ran the whole way home regardless of carriages, elephants, and foot-passengers, and having been knocked down by a surly porter and left a piece of his sheepskin between the teeth of a spiteful camel, neither of which insults he had time to resent, arrived at the Archbishop's house, found Peter the Reader and tremblingly begged an audience from Cyril. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of Hypatia This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by David Cole Medway, Massachusetts Hypatia by Charles Kingsley Chapter 9 The Snapping of the Bow Cyril heard Phelaman's story and Hypatia's message with a quiet smile and then dismissed the youth to an afternoon of labor in the city, commanding him to mention no word of what had happened and to come to him that evening and receive his order when he should have had time to think over the matter. So forth Phelaman went with his companions through lanes and alleys hideous with filth and poverty, compulsory idleness and native sin. Fearfully real and practical it all was, but he saw it all dimly is in a dream. Before his eyes one face was shining in his ears one silvery voice was ringing. He is a monk and knows no better. True. And how should he know better? How could he tell how much more there was to know in that great new universe in such a cranny whereof his life had till now been passed? He had heard but one side already what if there were two sides? Had he not a right? That is, was it not proper, fair prudent that he should hear both? And then judge. Cidril had hardly perhaps done wisely for the youth in incending him out about the practical drudgery of benevolence before deciding for him what was his duty with regard to Hypatia's invitation. He had not calculated on the new thoughts which were tormenting the young monk. Perhaps they would have been unintelligible to him had he known of them. Cidril had been bred up under the most stern dogmatic training in those vast monastic neighbouring salt-peeter quarries of Nittria where thousands toiled in voluntary poverty and starvation at vast bakeries, diaries, brick-fields, tailor shops, carpenter's yards and expended the prophets of their labour, not on themselves for they had need of nothing but on churches, hospitals and arms. Educated in that world of practical industrial production as well as of religious exercise which by its proximity to the great city accustomed monks to that world which they despised. Entangled from boyhood in the intrigues of his fierce and ambitious uncle Theophilus Cidril had succeeded him in the Patriarchate of Alexandria without having felt a doubt and stood free to throw his fiery energy and clear practical intellect into the cause of the church without scruple even where necessary without pity. How could such a man sympathise with a poor boy of twenty suddenly dragged forth from the quiet cavern shadow of the Laura into the full blaze and roar of the world's noonday. He too was cloister-bred but the busy and fanatic atmosphere of Nittria where every nerve of soul and body was kept on a life-long artificial strain without rest without simplicity without human affection was utterly antipodal to the government of the remote and needy though no less industrious commonwealths of Cenobites who dotted the lonely mountain glens far up into the heart of the Nubian desert. In such a one Philamen had received from a venerable man a mother's sympathy as well as a father's care and now he yearned for the encouragement of a gentle voice for the greeting of a kindly eye and was lonely and sick at heart and still Hypatia's voice haunted his ears like a strain of music and would not die away that lofty enthusiasm so sweet and modest in its grandeur that tone of pity in one so lovely it could not be called contempt for the many that delicious phantom of being an elect spirit unlike the crowd and am I altogether like the crowd said Philamen to himself as he staggered along under the weight of a groaning fever patient can there be found no fitter work for me than this which any porter from the key might do as well am I not somewhat wasted which toil is this have I not an intellect to taste a reason I could appreciate what she said why should not my faculties be educated why am I only to be shut out from knowledge there is a Christian noses as well as a heathen one what was permissible to Clement he had nearly said to Oregon but checked himself on the edge of heresy he's surely lawful for me is not my very craving for knowledge a sign that I am capable of it surely my sphere is the study rather than the street and then his fellow laborers he could not deny it to himself began to grow less venerable in his eyes let him try as he might to forget the old priests grumblings and detractions the fact was before him the men were coarse fierce, noisy so different from her their talk seemed mere gossip scandalous too and hard judging most of it about that man's private ambition and that woman's proud looks and who had stayed for the Eucharist the Sunday before and who had gone out after the sermon and how the majority who did not stay could possibly dare to go and how the minority who did not go could possibly dare to stay endless suspicions snares complaints what did they care for the eternal glories and the beatific vision there one test for all men and things from the patriarch to the prefect seemed to be did he or it advance the cause of the church which Phil Ammon soon discovered to mean their own cause their influence their self-glorification and the poor boy as his faculty for fault-finding quickened the influence of theirs seemed to see under the humble stock phrases in which they talked of their labors of love and the future reward of their present humiliations a deep and hardly hidden pride a faith in their own infallibility a contemptuous impatience of every man however venerable who differed from their party on any the slightest matter they spoke with sneers of Augustine's Latinizing tendencies and with open execrations of chrysostom as the vilest and most impious of schismatics and for ought Phil Ammon knew they were right enough to talk to wars and desolation past than impending without a word of pity for the slain and ruined as a just judgment of heaven upon heretics and heathens when they argued over the awful struggle for power which as he gathered from their words was even then pending between the emperor and the count of Africa as if it contained but one question of interest to them would siddle and they as his body guard gain or lose power in Alexandria and lastly when at some mention of arrestees and of Hypatia as his counsellor they broke out into open implications of God's curse and comforted themselves with the prospect of everlasting torment for both he shuddered and asked himself involuntarily were these the ministers of a gospel were these the fruits of Christ's spirit and a whisper thrilled through the inmost depth of his soul is there a gospel is there a spirit of Christ would not their fruits be different from these faint and low and distant was that whisper like the mutter of an earthquake miles below the soil and yet like the earthquake roll had in that one moment jarred every belief and hope and memory of his being each a hairs breath from its place only one hairs breath but that was enough his own inward and outward world change shape and cracked at every joint what if it were to fall in pieces his brain reeled with a thought he doubted his own identity might of heaven had altered its shoe was the firm ground on which he stood after all no solid reality but a fragile shell which covered what the nightmare vanished and he breathed once more what a strange dream the sun in the exertion must have made him giddy he would forget all about it weary with labour feel weary with thought he returned that evening longing in yet dreading to be omitted to speak with hypatia he half hoped at moments that Cyril might think him too weak for it and the next all his pride endearing not to say his faith and hope spurred him on might he but face the terrible enchantress and rebuke her to her face and yet so lovely so noble as she looked could he speak to her except in tones of gentle warning pity council in treaty might he not convert her save her glorious thought to win such a soul to the true cause to be able to show as the first fruits of his mission the very champion of heathendom it was worthwhile to have lived only to do that and having done it to die the archbishop's lodgings when he entered them were in a state of firm and even greater than usual groups of monks, priests palabalani and citizens rich and pure were hanging about the courtyard talking earnestly and angrily a large party of monks fresh from nitria with ragged hair and beards and the peculiar expression of countenance which fanatics of all creeds acquire fierce and yet abject self-conscious and yet ungoverned silly and yet sly with features coarsened and degraded by continual fasting and self-torture prudishly shrouded from head to heel in their long ragged gowns were gesticulating wildly and loudly and calling on their more peaceable companions in no measured terms to revenge some insult offered to the church what is the matter asked Velaman of a quiet portly citizen who stood looking up with the most perplexed visage at the windows of the patriarch's apartments don't ask me I have nothing to do with it why does not his holiness come out and speak to them blessed virgin mother of God that we were well through it all cowered Balder monk in his ear these shopkeepers care for nothing but seeing their stalls safe rather than lose a day's custom they would give the very church his to be plundered by the heathen we do not want them cried another we managed Dias Chorus and his brother and we can manage Arestes what matter what answer he sends the devil shall have his own they ought to have been back two hours ago they were murdered by this time he would not dare touch the Archdeacon he would dare anything Cyril should never have sent them forth as lambs among wolves what necessity was there for letting the prefect know that the Jews were gone he would have found it out for himself fast enough the next time he wanted to borrow money what is all this about reverend sir asked Velaman of Peter the reader who made his appearance at that moment in the quadrangle walking with great strides like the solar vagamemnon across the Meads of Asphodel and apparently beside himself with rage ah you there you may go tomorrow young fool the patriarch can't talk to you why should he some people have a good deal too much notice taken of them in my opinion yes you may go your head is not turned already you may go and get it turned tomorrow we shall see whether he who exalts himself is not abased before all is over and he was striding away when Velaman at the risk of an explosion stopped him his holiness commanded me to see him sir before Peter turned on him in a fury fool will you dare to intrude your fantastical dreams on him at such a moment as this he commanded me to see him said Velaman with a true soldier like discipline of a monk and see him I will in spite of any man I believe in my heart you wish to keep me from his counsels and his blessing Peter looked at him for a moment with a right wicked expression and then to the youth's astonishment struck him full in the face and shelled for help if the blow had been given by Pambo in the Laura a week before Velaman would have borne it but from that man and coming unexpectedly as the finishing stroke to all his disappointment discussed it was intolerable and in an instant Peter's long legs were sprawling on the pavement while he bellowed like a ball for all the monks in Nitria a dozen lean brown hands were at Velaman's throat as Peter rose sees him, hold him half bloody, the traitor the heretic he holds communion with heathens down with him cast him out carry him to the Archbishop while Velaman took himself free and Peter returned to the charge I call all good Catholics to witness he has beaten an ecclesiastic in the courts of the Lord's house even in the midst of the of Jerusalem and he was in Hypatia's lecture room this morning a groan of pious horror arose, Velaman said he's back against the wall his holiness the patriarch sent me he confesses, he confesses he deluded the piety of the patriarch into letting him go under color of converting her and even now he wants to intrude on the sacred presence of Cyril burning only with a carnal desire that he may meet the sorceress in her house tomorrow scandal, abomination in the holy place and a rush at the poor youth took place his blood was thoroughly up the respectable part of the crowd as usual in such cases prudently retreated and left him to the mercy of the monks with an eye to their own reputation for orthodoxy he mentioned their personal safety and he had to help himself as he could he looked round for a weapon there was none the ring of monks were baying at him like hounds round a bear and though he might have been a match for any one of them singly yet their sinewy limbs and determined faces warned him that again such odds the struggle would be desperate let me leave this court in safety because whether I am a heretic and to him I commit my cause the holy patriarch shall know of your iniquity I will not trouble you I give you leave to call me heretic or heathen if you will if I cross this threshold till Cyril himself sends for me back to shame you and he turned and forced his way to the gate amid a yell of derision which brought every drop of blood in his body into his cheeks twice as he went down the vaulted passage a rush was made on him from behind but the soberer of his persecutors checked it yet he could not leave them young and hot-headed as he was without one last word and on the threshold he turned you who call yourselves the disciples of the lord and are more like the demoniacs who abode day and night in the tombs crying and cutting themselves with stones in an instant they rushed at him and luckily for him rushed also into the arms of a party of ecclesiastics who were hurrying inwards from the street with faces of blank terror he has refused shouted the foremost he declares war against the church of god oh my friends pant of the Archdeacon we are escaped like the bird out of the snare of the fowler the tyrant kept us waiting two hours at his palace gates and then sent lictors out upon us with rods and axes telling us that they were the only message which he had for robbers and rioters back to the patriarch and the whole mob streamed in again leaving philaman alone in the street and in the world with the nail he strode on in his wroth or more before he asked himself that question and when he asked it he found himself in no humor to answer it he was adrift and blown out of harbour upon a shoreless sea in utter darkness all heaven and earth were nothing to him he was alone in the blindness of anger gradually one fixed idea as a light tower began to glimmer through the storm to see Hypatia and convert her he had the patriarchs leave for that that must be right that would justify him bringing him back perhaps in a triumph more glorious than any caesars leading captive in the fetters of the gospel the queen of heathendom yes there was that left for which to live his passion cooled down gradually as he wandered on in the fading evening light up one street and down another till he had utterly lost his way what matter he should find that lecture room to motto at least at last he found himself in a broad avenue which he seemed to know was that the sun gate in the distance he sauntered carelessly down it and found himself at last on the great esplanade where the little porter had taken him three days before he was close then to the museum and to her house destiny had led him unconsciously towards the scene of his enterprise it was a good omen he would go thither at once he might sleep upon her doorstep as well as upon any other perhaps he might catch a glimpse of her going out or coming in even at that late hour it might be well to accustom himself to the sight of her there would be the less chance of his being abashed tomorrow before those sorcerous eyes and moreover to tell the truth his self dependence and his self will too crushed or rather laid to sleep by the discipline of the Laura had started into wild life and given him a mysterious pleasure which he had not felt since he was disobedient little boy of doing what he chose right or wrong simply because he chose it such moments come to every free-willed creature happy are those who have not like poor Philamen been kept by a hotbed cultivation from knowing how to face them but he had yet to learn or rather his tutors had to learn that the sure path toward willing obedience and manful self-restraint lies not through slavery but through liberty he was not certain which was Hypatia's house but the door of the museum he could not forget so there he sat himself down under the garden wall soothed by the cool night and the holy silence and the rich perfume of the thousand foreign flowers there he sat and watched and watched and watched in vain for some glimpse of each one object which of the houses was hers which was the window of her chamber did it look into the street what business had his fancy with women's chambers but that one open window with the lamp burning bright inside he could not help looking up to it he could not help fancying hoping he even moved a few yards to see better the bright interior of the room high opposite was he could still discern shelves of books pictures on the walls was that a voice? yes a woman's voice reading aloud in meter was plainly distinguishable in the dead stillness of the night which did not even awaken a whisper in his head he stood spellbound by curiosity suddenly the voice ceased and a woman's figure came forward to the window and stood motionless gazing upward at the spangled star world overhead and seeming to drink in the glory and the silence and the rich perfume could it be she? every pulse in his body throb madly could it be? what was she doing? she could not distinguish the features but the full blaze of the eastern moon showed him an upturned brow between a golden stream of glittering tresses which hid her whole figure except the white hands clasped upon her bosom was she praying were these her midnight sorceries? and still his heart throbbed and throbbed till he almost fancied she must hear its noisy beat and still she stood motionless gazing upon the sky like some exquisite chrysalis phantine statue all ivory and gold and behind her round the bright room within paintings, books a whole world of unknown science and beauty and she the priestess of it all inviting him to learn of her and be wise it was a temptation he would flee from it he was and it might not be she after all he made some sudden movement she looked down and saw him and shutting the blind vanished for the night in vain now that the temptation had departed he sat and waited for his reappearance half cursing himself for having broken the spell but the chamber was dark and silent henceforth and philaman found himself soon wandering back to the laura in quiet dreams beneath the barmy semi-tropic night End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Part 1 of Hypatia This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by David Cole Hypatia by Charles Kingsley Chapter 10 The Interview Part 1 Philaman was aroused from his slumbers at sunrise the next morning by the attendants who came in to sweep out the lecture-rooms and wandered disconsolately enough up and down the street longing for and yet dreading the three weary hours to be over which must pass before he would be admitted to Hypatia but he had tasted no food since noon the day before he had but three hours sleep the previous night and had been working, running and fighting for two whole days without a moment's peace of body or mind sick with hunger and fatigue and aching from head to foot with his hard nights rest on the granite flags he felt as unable as man could well do to collect his thoughts or brace his nerves for the coming interview how to get food he could not guess but having two hands he might at least earn a coin by carrying a load so he went down to the Espronade in search of work of that alas there was none so he sat down upon the parapet of the key and watched the shoals of sardines which played in and out over the marble steps below and wondered at the strange crabs and sea locusts which crawled up and down the face of the masonry a few feet below the surface scrambling for bits of awful and making occasional fruitless dashes at the nimble little silver arrows which played around them and at last his whole soul too tired to think of anything else became absorbed in a mighty struggle between two great crabs which held on stoutly each by a claw to his respective bunch of seaweed while with the others they tugged one at the head and the other at the tail of a dead fish which would conquer I a witch and for five minutes Philamen was alone in the world with the two struggling heroes might not they be emblematic might not the other one typify Cyril the lower one Hypatia and the dead fish between himself but at last the deadlock was suddenly ended the fish parted in the middle and the typical Hypatia and Cyril losing hold of their respective seaweeds by the jerk tumbled down each with its half fish and vanished head over heels into the blue depths in so undignified a manner that Philamen burst into a shout of laughter what's the joke as to well known voice behind him and a hand patted him familiarly on the back he looked ground and saw the little porter his head crowned with the full basket of figs, grapes and watermelons on which the poor youth cast a longing eye well my young friend and why are you not at church look at all the saints pouring into the cesareum there behind you Philamen answered sulkily enough, something inarticulate ho ho quarreled with the successor of the apostles already has my prophecy come true and the strong meat of pious riot and plunder proved too highly spiced for young pallet eh poor Philamen angry with himself for feeling that the porter was right shrinking from the notion of exposing the failing of his fellow Christians shrinking still more from making such a jack and apes his confidant and yet yearning his loneliness to open his heart to someone he dropped out hint by hint word by word the events of the past evening and finished by a request to be put in the way of earning his breakfast earning your breakfast shall the favourites of the gods of Hypatia earn his breakfast while I have an obal to share with him base thought youth I have wronged you unphilosophically I allowed yesterday morning envy to ruffle the ocean of my intellect we are now friends and brothers in hatred to the monastic tribe I do not hate them I tell you said Philamen but those nitrient savages are the perfect examples of monkry and you hate them and therefore all greatest containing the less you hate all less monastic monks I have not heard logic lectures in vain now up the sea woos are dusty limbs Nerids and tritons charging no cruel coin call us to nature's baths at home a mighty sheet fish smokes upon the festive board beer crowns the horn and earnings deck the dish come then, my guest and brother Philamen swallowed certain scruples about becoming the guest of a heathen seeing that otherwise there seemed no chance of having anything else to swallow and after a refreshing plunge in the sea followed the hospitable little fellow to Hypatia's door where he dropped his daily load of fruit and then into a narrow by-street to the ground floor of a huge block of lodgings with a common staircase swarming with children, cats and chickens and was ushered by his host into a little room where the savoury smell of broiling fish revived Philamen's heart Judith, Judith we're linguist thou marvel of pentelicus foam flake of the wine dark main lily of the mariotic lake you accursed black andromeda if you don't bring the breakfast this moment I'll cut you in two the innard door opened an in-bustled trembling a handful of dishes a tall lithe negris dressed in true negro fashion in a snow-white cotton shift a scarlet cotton petticoat and a bright yellow turban of the same making a light in that dark place which would have served as a landmark a mile off she put the dishes down and a porter majestically waved Philamen to a stool while she retreated and stood humbly waiting on her lord and master who did not deign to introduce to his guest the black beauty which composed his whole surroglio but indeed such an active courtesy would have been needless for the first morsel of fish was hardly safe in poor Philamen's mouth when the negroes rushed upon him caught him by the head and covered him with rapturous kisses up jumped the little man with a yell brandishing a knife in one hand and a leak in the other while Philamen scarcely there scandalized jumped up too and shook himself free of the lady who, finally getting possible to vent her feelings further on his head instantly changed her tactics and wallowing on the floor again frantically kissing his feet what is this before my face up shameless baggage or thou dais the death and the porter pulled her up upon her knees it is the monk the young man I told you of who saved me from the Jews the other night what good angel sent him back here that I might thank him cried the poor creature while the tears ran down her black shining face I am that good angel said the porter with a look of intense self-satisfaction arise daughter veribus thou art pardoned being but a female what says the poet woman is passion slave while rightful lord or her in passion rules the noble male youth to my arms truly say the philosophers that the universe is magical in itself and by mysterious sympathies links like to like the prophetic instinct of thy future benefits towards me drew me to thee as by an invisible warp horser or chain cable from the moment I beheld thee thou went to kindred spirit my brother though thou newest it not therefore I do not praise thee no nor thank thee in the least though thou hast preserved for me the one palm which shadows my weary steps the single lotus flower the single lotus flower in this case black not white which blooms for me above the mud-stained ocean waste of the hillig baribus that which thou has done thou has done my instinct by divine compulsion thou couldst no more help it than thou canst help eating that fish and art no more to be praised for it thank you said Philamen comprehend me living in the schools for such cases is this has been so at least for the last six months similar particles from one original source exist in you and me similar causes produce similar effects our attractions and typities impulses are therefore in similar circumstances absolutely the same and therefore you did the other night exactly what I should have done in your case Philamen thought the latter part of the theory open to question but he had by no means stopped eating when he rose and his mouse was much too full of fish to argue and therefore continued the little man we are to consider ourselves henceforth as one soul in two bodies you may have the best of the corporeal part of the division yet it is the soul which makes the person you may trust me I shall not disdain my brotherhood if anyone insults you henceforth you have but to call me and if I be within hearing why by this right arm and he attempted a pat on Philamen's head which as there was a head and shoulders difference between them might on the whole have been considered from the theatric point of view as a failure whereupon the little man sees the calabash of beer and having there with a cow's horn his thumb on the small end raised it high in the air to the tenth muse and to your interview with her and removing his thumb he sent a steady jet into his open mouth and having drained the horn without drawing breath licked his lips handed it to Philamen and flew ravenously upon the fish and onions Philamen to whom the whole bird had no invocation to make but one which he felt too sacred for his present temper of mind so he attempted to imitate the little man's feet and of course poured the beer into his eyes and up his nose and in his bosom and finally choked himself black in the face while his host observed smilingly unacquainted with the ancient and classical customs preserved in the centre of civilisation by the descendants of Alexander's heroes Judith clear the table now to the sanctuary of the muses Philamen rose and finished his meal by a monkish grace a gentle and reverent amen rose from the other end of the room it was the Negres she saw him look up at her dropped her eyes modestly and bustled away with the remnants while Philamen and his host started for Hypatia's lecture room your wife as a Christian asked he when they were outside the door ahem the barbaric mind is prone to superstition yet she is being but a woman and a Negres a good soul and thrifty though requiring like all lower animals occasional chastisement I married her on philosophic grounds a wife was necessary to me for several reasons but mindful that the philosopher should subjugate the material appetite and rise above the swinish desires of the flesh even when his nature requires him to satisfy them I purpose to make pleasure as unpleasant as possible I had the choice of several cripples their parents of ancient Macedonian family like myself were by no means averse but I required a housekeeper with whose duties the want of an arm or a leg might have interfered why did you not marry a scold asked Philamen pertinently observed and indeed the example of Socrates rose luminous more than once before my imagination but philosophic calm my dear youth and the peaceful contemplation of the ineffable I could not relinquish those luxuries so having by the bounty of Hypatia and her pupils saved a small sum I went out bought me an egress and hired six rooms in the block we have just left where I let lodgings to young students of the divine philosophy have you any lodges now ahem certain rooms are occupied by a lady of rank the philosopher will above all things abstain from babbling idle the tongue is too but there is a closet at your service and for the hall of reception which you have just left are you not a kindred and fraternal spark we can combine our meals as our souls are already united Philamen thanked him heartily for the offer though he shrank from accepting it and in ten minutes more found himself at the door of the very house which he had been watching the night before it was she then whom he had seen he was handed over by a black porter to a smart slave girl who guided him up through cloisters and corridors to the large library where five or six young men were sitting busily engaged under thean's superintendence in copying manuscripts and drawing geometric diagrams end of chapter ten part one chapter ten part two of Hypatia this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by David Cole Hypatia by Charles Kingsley chapter ten chapter two Philamen gazed curiously at these symbols of a science unknown to him and wondered whether the day would ever come when he too would understand their mysteries but his eyes fell again as he saw the youths staring at his ragged sheepskin and matted locks with undisguised contempt he could hardly collect himself enough to obey the summons of the venerable old man as he beckoned him silently out of the room and led him with the titters of the young students ringy in his ears through the door by which he had entered and a longer gallery till he stopped and knocked humbly at a door she must be within his knees knocked together under him his heart sank and sank into abysses poor wretch to escape and dash into the street but was it not his one hope, his one object but why did not that old man speak if he would have but said something if he would have only looked cross contemptuous but with the same impressive gravity as of a man upon a business in which he had no voice and wished it to be understood that he had none the old man silently opened the door and Philamen followed there she was looking more glorious than ever more than when glowing with the enthusiasm of her own eloquence more than when transfigured last night in golden tresses and glittering moonbeams there she sat without moving a finger as the two entered she greeted her father with a smile which made up for all her seeming want of courtesy to him and then fixed her large grey eyes full on Philamen here is the youth, my daughter it was your wish you know and I always believed that you know best another smile put an end to this speech and the old man retreated humbly toward another door with a somewhat anxious visage and then lingering and looking back his hand upon the latch if you require anyone you know you have only to call we shall be all in the library another smile and the old man disappeared leaving the two alone Philamen stood trembling choking his eyes fixed on the floor where were all the fine things he had conned over for the occasion he did not look up at that face lest it should drive them out of his head and yet the more he kept his eyes turned from the face the more he was conscious of it conscious that he was watching him and the more all the fine words were by that very knowledge driven out of his head when would she speak perhaps she wished him to speak first it was her duty to begin to get sent for him but still she kept silence and sat scanning him intently from head to foot herself as motionless as a statue her hands folded together before her over a manuscript which lay upon her knee if there was a blush on her cheek at her own daring his eyes swam too much to notice it when would the intolerable suspense end as unwilling to speak as he but someone must strike the first blow and as often happens the weaker party impelled by sheer terror struck it and broke the silence in a tone half indignant half apologetic you sent for me hither I did it seemed to me as I watched you during my lecture to interrupt me that your offence was one of mere youthful ignorance it seemed to me that your countenance bespoke a nobler nature than that which the gods are usually pleased to bestow upon monks that I may now ascertain whether or not my surmises were correct I ask you for what purpose are you come hither Philamen hailed the questions that God sent now for his message and yet he faltered as he answered with a desperate effort to rebuke you for your sins my sins what sins she asked as she looked up with a stately slow surprise in those large grey eyes before which his own glance sank abashed he knew not why what sins he knew not did she look like a Messalina but was she not a heathen and yet he blushed and stammered and hung down his head as shrinking at the sound of his own words he replied the foul sorcerers and proflic is he worse than sorcerers in which they say he could get no further for he looked up again and saw an awful quiet smile upon that face his words had raised no blush upon the marble cheek they say the bigots and slanderers wild beasts of the deserts and fanatic intrigers who in the words of him they call their master compass heaven and earth to make one proselyte and when they have found him make him twofold more the child of hell than themselves go I forgive you you are young and know not yet the mystery of the world science will teach you some day what would frame is the sacrament of the soul's inward beauty such a soul I had fancied your face expressed but I was mistaken foul hearts alone harbour such foul suspicions and fancy others to be what they know they might become themselves go do I look like the very tapering of these fingers if you could read their symbolism would give you a dream the lie and she flashed full on him like sun rays from a mirror the full radiance of her glorious countenance alas poor filamen where were thy eloquent arguments thy orthodox theories then proudly he struggled with his own man's heart of flesh and tried to turn his eyes away the magnet might as well struggle to escape from the spell of the north in a moment he knew not how utter shame remorse longing for forgiveness swept over him and crushed him down and he found himself on his knees before her in abject and broken syllables in treating pardon go I forgive you but know before you go that the celestial milk which fell from here as bosom bleaching the plant with each touch casting whiteness was not more taintless than the soul of Theon's daughter he looked up in her face as he knelt before her an erring instinct told him that her words were true he was a monk accustomed to believe animal sin to be the deadliest and worst of all sins indeed the great offence itself beside which all others were comparatively venal where there was physical purity must not all other virtues follow in its wake all other failings were invisible under the dazzling veil of that great loveliness and in his self abasement he went on oh do not spurn me do not drive me away I have neither friend home nor teacher I fled last night from the men of my own faith maddened by bitter insult and injustice disappointed and disgusted with their ferocity, narrowness, ignorance I dare not I cannot I will not return to the obscurity and the dullness of a thiebade laura I have a thousand doubts to solve a thousand questions to ask about that great ancient world of which I know nothing of whose mysteries they say you alone possess the key I am a Christian but I thirst for knowledge I do not promise to believe you I do not promise to obey you but let me hear teach me what you know that I may compare it with what I know if indeed and he shuddered as he spoke the words I do know anything have you forgotten the epithets which you use to me just now no no but do you forget them they were put into my mouth I did not believe them when I said them it was agony to me but I did it as I thought for your sake save you oh say that I may come and hear you again only from a distance in the very farthest corner of your lecture room I will be silent you shall never see me but your words yesterday awoke in me no, not doubts but still I must I must hear more or be as miserable and homeless inwardly as I am in my outward circumstances and he looked up imploringly for consent rise this passion and that attitude are fitting neither for you nor me and as Philaman rose she rose also to her father and in a few minutes returned with him come with me young man said he laying his hand kindly enough on Philaman's shoulder the rest of this matter you and I can settle and Philaman followed him not daring to look back at Hypatia while the whole room swam before his eyes so, so I hear you have been saying rude things to my daughter well, she has forgiven you has she asked the young monk with an eager start aw, you may well look astonished but I forgive you too it is lucky for you, however that I did not hear you or else old man as I am I can't say what I might not have done aw, you little know you little know what she is and the old pedant's eyes kindled with loving pride may the gods give you someday such a daughter that is, if you learn to deserve it as virtuous as she is wise as wise as she is beautiful truly they have repaid me for my labours in their service look young man little as you merited here is a pledge of your forgiveness such as the richest and noblest in Alexandria are glad to purchase with many an ounce of gold a ticket of free admission to all her lectures henceforth now go you have been favoured beyond your desserts and should learn that the philosopher can practice what the Christian only preaches and return good for evil and he put into Philamen's hand a slip of paper and bid one of the secretaries show him to the outer door the youths looked up at him from their writing as he passed faces of surprise and awe and evidently thinking no more about the absurdity of his sheepskin and his tan complexion and he went out with a stunned and confused feeling as of one who by a desperate leap has plunged into a new world he tried to feel content but he dare not all before him was anxiety uncertainty wither would it lead him well was it not the great stream had not all mankind for all the ages been floating on it or was it but a desert river dwindling away beneath the fiery sun destined to lose itself a few miles on among the arid sands where our seniors and the faith of his childhood write and was the old world coming immediately to its death-throw and the kingdom of God at hand or was it all right and the church catholic appointed to spread and conquer and destroy and rebuild till the kingdoms of this world had become the kingdoms of God and of his Christ if so what use in this old knowledge which he craved and yet if the day of the destruction things were at hand and the times destined to become worse and not better till the end how could that be what news asked the little porter who had been waiting for him at the door all the while what news, oh favourite of the gods I will lodge with you and labour with you ask me no more at present I am, I am those who descended into the cave and they were so glorious and beheld the unspeakable remained astonished for three days my young friend and so will you and they went forth together to earn their bread but what is Hypatia doing all this while upon that cloudy Olympus where she sits enshrined far above the noise and struggle of man and his work-day world she is sitting again with her manuscripts open before her but she is thinking of the young monk not of them beautiful as Antinas rather as the young Phoebus himself flesh-growing from the slaughter of the python why should not he too become a slayer of pythons and loathsome monsters bred from the mud of sense and matter so bold and earnest I can forgive him those words for the very fact of his having dared here in my father's house to say them to me and yet so tender so open to repentance and noble shame that is no plebeian by birth patrician blood surely flows in those veins it shows out in every attitude every tone every motion of the handed lip he cannot be one of the herd whoever knew one of them crave after knowledge for its own sake and I have lunged so for one real pupil I have lunged so to find one such man among the effeminate selfish triflers who pretend to listen to me I thought I had found one and the moment that I had lost him behold I find another and that a fresher purer simpler nature than ever Raphaels was at his best by all the laws of physiognomy by all the symbolism of gesture and voice and complexion by the instinct of my own heart that young monk might be the instrument the ready valiant obedient instrument for carrying out all my dreams if I could but train him into a long Guinness I could dare to play the part of a Zenobia with him as counsellor and for my Odinatus Estes, horrible she covered her face with a hand a minute no she said dashing away the tears that and anything and everything for the cause of philosophy and the gods End of Chapter 10 If you have any information or to volunteer please visit LibraVox.org Recording by Brandon Tannum Hypatia by Charles Kingsley Chapter 11 The Laura Again Not a sound not a moving object broke the utter stillness of the Glen of Skeetis the shadows of the crags though pailing every moment before the spreading dawn a winding line of haze slept above the course of the rivulet the plumes of the palm trees hung motionless as if awaiting in resignation the breathless blaze of the approaching day at length among the green ridges of the monastery garden two gray figures rose from their knees and began with slow and feeble strokes to break the silence but a clatter of their holes in the pebbles these beans grow wonderfully brother Alfugus we shall be able to sow our second crop by God's blessing a week earlier than we did last year the person addressed returns no answer and his companion after watching him for some time in silence recommenced What is it my brother I have remarked lately a melancholy of God a deep sigh was the only answer the speaker laid down his hoe and placing his hand affectionately on the shoulder of Alfugus asked again What is it my friend I will not cling with you my abbot's right to know the secrets of your heart but surely that breast hides nothing which is unworthy to be spoken to me however unworthy I may be to hear it may not be sad Pambo my friend does not Solomon say that there is a time for mourning true, but a time for mirth also none to the penitent burdened with the guilt of many sins recollect what the blessed Anthony used to say trust not in thine own righteousness and regret not that which is past I do neither Pambo do not be too sure of that is it not because thou art still trusting in thyself that thou dost regret the past which shows thee that thou art not that which thou wouldst gladly pry thyself on being Pambo my friend said our senior solemnly I will tell thee all my sins are not yet past for honorius my pupil still lives and in him lives the weakness and the misery of Rome my sins past why do I see rising before me night after night that train of accusing spectres ghosts of men slain in battle widows and orphans virgins of the lord treaking in the grasp of barbarians who stand by my bedside and cry had stealthed on thy duty we had not been thus where is that imperial charge which God committed to thee and the old man hid his face in his hands and wept bitterly Pambo laid his hand again tenderly on the weeper's shoulder is there no pride here, my brother who are thou to change the fate of nations and the hearts of emperors which are in the hand of the king of kings if thou wert weak and imperfect in thy work for unfaithful I will warrant thee thou wert never he put thee there because thou wert imperfect that so that which has come to pass might come to pass and thou bearest thine own burden only and yet not thou but he who bore it for thee why then am I tormented by these nightly visions feel from not friend they are spirits of evil and therefore lying spirits where they good spirits they would speak to thee only in pity, forgiveness, encouragement but be they ghosts or demons they must be evil because they are accusers like the evil one himself the accuser of the saints he is the father of lies and his children will be like himself what said the blessed Anthony that a monk should not busy his brain with painting spectres or give himself up for lost but rather be cheerful as one who knows that he is redeemed and in the hands of the Lord where the evil one has no power to hurt him for, he used to say the demons behave to us even as they find us if they see us cast down and fate us they terrify us still more that they may plunge us in despair but if they see us full of faith and joyful in the Lord with our souls filled with the glory which shall be then they shrink abashed and flee away in confusion cheer up friend such thoughts are of the night they are of Satan and of the powers of darkness and whittled on they flee away and yet things are revealed to men upon their beds in visions of the night be it so nothing at all events has been revealed to thee upon thy bed except that which down lowest already far better than Satan does namely that they are not a sinner but for me my friend though I doubt not that such things are it is the day and not the night which brings revelations hell then because by day I can see to read that book which is written like the law given on Sinai upon tables of stone by the finger of God himself our seniors looked up at him inquiringly Pambos smiled thou knowest that like many holy men of old no scholar and knew not even the Greek tongue to thou out of thy brotherly kindness tossest it to me but hast thou never heard what Anthony said to a certain pagan who reproached him with his ignorance of books which is first he asked spirit or letter spirit says thou then no the healthy spirit needs no letters my book is the whole creation lying open before me I can read when so ever I please the word of God dost thou not undervalue learning my friend I am old among monks and have seen much of their ways and among them my simplicity seems to have seen this many a man wearing himself with study and tormenting his soul as to whether he believed rightly this doctrine and that while he knew not with Solomon that in much learning is much thorough and that while he was puzzling at the letter of God's message the spirit of it was going fast and faster out of him and how did still know that of such a man by seeing him become a more and more learned theologian and more and more zealous for the letter of orthodoxy and yet less and less loving and merciful less and less full of trust in God and of hopeful thoughts for himself and for his brethren till he seemed to have darkened his whole soul with disputations which breed only strife and have forgotten utterly the message which is written in that book wherewith the blessed Anthony was content of what message does thou speak looks at the old abbot stretching his hand towards the eastern desert and judge like a wise man for thyself as he spoke a long arrow of level light flashed down the gorge from crag to crag awakening every crack and slab to vividness and life the great crimson sun rose swiftly through the dim night mist of the desert and as he poured his glory down the glen the hay is rose in threads and plumes and vanished leaving the stream to sparkle round the rocks like the living twinkling eye of the whole scene swallows flashed by hundreds out of the cliffs and began their air dance for the day the gerboa hopped stealthily homered on his stilts from his stolen meal in the monastery garden the brown sand lizards underneath the stones opened one eyelid each and having satisfied themselves that it was day dragged their bloated bodies and whipped like tails out into the most burning patch of gravel which they could find and nestling together as a further protection against cold felt fast asleep again the buzzard who considered himself lord of the valley awoke with a long quarrelous bark and rising aloft in two or three vast rings to stretch himself after his night sleep hung motionless watching every lark which churruped on the cliffs while from the far off Nile below the awakening croak of pelicans the clang of geese the whistle of the godwidden curlew came ringing up the windings of the glen and last of all the voices of the monks rose chanting a mourning hymn to some wild easter in here and a new day had begun in sceetus like those which went before and those which were to follow after week after week year after year of toil and prayer as quiet as its sleep what does that teach thee how fugus my friend our seniors was silent to me it teaches this that god is light and in him is no darkness at all that in his presence is life and fullness of joy forevermore that he is the giver who delights in his own bounty the lover whose mercy is over all his works and why not over thee too oh thou of little faith look at those thousand birds and without our fall or not one of them shall fall to the ground an art thou not of more valued and many spirals thou for whom god sent his son to die ah my friend we must look out and around to see what god is like this is when we persist in turning our eyes inward and prying curiously over our own imperfections that we learn to make a god after our own image and fancy that our own darkness and hardness of heart are the patterns of his light and love thou speakest rather as a philosopher than as a penitent catholic for me I feel that I want to look more and not less inward deeper self examination completes our abstraction and attain even here or what I crave for I long forgive me my friend but I long more and more daily for the solitary life this art is accursed by man's sin the less we see of it it seems to me the better I may speak as a philosopher or as a heathen for all I know yes it seems to me that as they say to have love is better than none the best of what he has and throw away no lesson because the book is somewhat torn and soiled the air teaches me thus far already shall I shut my eyes to those invisible things of God which are clearly manifested by the things which are made because some day they will be more clearly manifested than now but as for more abstraction are we so worldly here in Skeetus nay my friend God has surely his vocation and for each some peculiar method of life is more edifying than another in my case the habits of mind which I acquired in the world will cling to me in spite of myself even here I cannot help watching the doings of others studying their characters planning and plotting for them trying to prognosticate their future fate not a word not a gesture of this our little family but turns away my mind from the one thing needful and do you fancy that the anchorite in his cell has fewer distractions what can he have but the supply of the mere necessary wants of life and them even he may abridge to the gathering of a few roots and herbs men have lived like the beasts already that they might at the same time live like the angels and why should not I also and thou art the wise man of the world the student of the hearts of others the anatomizer of thine own has to not found out that besides a craving stomach man carries within him a corrupt heart many a man I have seen who in his haste to fly from the fiends without him has forgotten to close the door of his heart against worse fiends who are ready to harbour within him many a monk friend changes his place but not the anguish of his soul I have known those who driven to feed on their own thoughts in solitude have desperately cast themselves from cliffs are ripped up their own bodies in the longing to escape from thoughts from which one companion one kindly voice might have delivered them I have known those too who have been so puffed up by those very penances which were meant to humble them that they have despised all means of grace as though they were already perfect and refusing even the holy Eucharist have lived in self-glorying dreams and visions suggested by the evil spirits one such I knew who in the madness of his pride refused to be counselled by any mortal man that he would call no-man-master and what befell him he who used to pride himself on wandering a day's journey into the desert without food or drink who boasted that he could sustain life for three months at a time only on wild herbs and a blessed bread seized with an inward fire fled from his cell back to the theatres the circus and the taverns and ended his miserable days with a gluttony holding all things to be but phantasms denying his own existence and that of God himself Arcenius shook his head be it so but my case is different I have yet more to confess my friend day by day I am more and more haunted by the remembrance of that world from which I fled I noted if I returned I should feel no pleasure in those pumps even while I battened on them I despised can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women or discern any longer what I eat or what I drink and yet the palaces of those seven hills there's statesmen and their generals their intrigues, their falls and their triumphs for they might rise and conquer yet for no moment are they out of my imagination no moment in which they are not tempting me back to them like a moth to the candle which has already scorched him with a dreadful spell which I must at last obey wretched that I am against my own will or break by fleeing into some outer desert from whence return will be impossible Pamble smiled again I say this is the worldly wise man the searcher of hearths the vain flea from the little Laura which does turn his thoughts at times from such vain dreams to a solitude where he will be utterly unable to escape those dreams well friend and what if thou art troubled at times by anxieties and schemes for this brother and for that better to be anxious for others than only for thyself better to have something to love even something to weep over than to become in some lonely cavern thine own world perhaps as more than one whom I have known thine own God do you know what you are saying as Sarthenius in a startled tone I say that by fleeing into solitude a man cuts himself off from all which makes a Christian man from law obedience fellow help self-sacrifice from the communion itself how then how can't thou hold communion with those towards whom thou can't show no love and how can't thou show thy love but by works of love I can at least pray day and night for all mankind has that no place or rather has it not the mightiest place in the communion of saints he who cannot pray for his brother whom he does see and whose sins and temptations he knows will pray but dully my friend Ophiugus for his brother whom he does not see or for anything else and he who will not labour for his brothers the same will soon cease to pray for them or love them either and then what is written if a man loved not his brother whom he had seen how will he love God whom he had not seen again I say for your argument leads I am a plain man I know nothing about arguments if a thing be true let it lead where it will for it leads where God wills but at this rate it were better for a man to take a wife and have children and mix himself up in all the turmoil of carnal affections in order to have as many as possible to love and fear for and work for a while I am a monk and no logician but this I say that thou leave us not the laura for the desert with my good will I would rather, had I my wish see thy wisdom installed somewhere nearer the metropolis at Troy or Canopus for example where thou mightest be at hand to fight the lords battles why were thou taught worldly wisdom but to use it for the good it is enough let us go and the two old men walked homeward across the valley little guessing the practical answer which was ready for their argument in Abbot Pambos cell in the shape of a tall and grim a ecclesiastic who was busily satisfying his hunger with dates and millets and by no means refusing the palm wine the sole delicacy of the monastery which had been brought forth only in honour of a guest the stately and courtly hospitality of Easter and manners as well as the self-restraining kindness of monastic Christianity forbade the Abbot to interrupt the stranger and it was not till he had finished a hearty meal that Pambos asked his name and errand my unworthiness is called Peter the Reader I come from Cyril with letters and messages to the brother of Eugos Pambos rose and bowed reverentially we have heard your good reports sir as of one zealously affected in the cause of the church catholic will it please you to follow us to the cell of Eugos Peter stalked after them with a sufficiently important dare to the little hut and there taking from his bosom Cyril's epistle handed it to our seniors who sat along reading and rereading with a clouded brow while Pambos watched him with simple awe not daring to interrupt by a question lukebrations which he considered of unfathomable depth these are indeed the last days said our seniors at length spoken out by the prophet when many shall run to and fro so Heraclion has actually sailed for it to me his armament was met on the high seas by Alexandrian merchant men three weeks ago and Orestes hardens his heart more and more I, Pharaoh, that he is or rather the heathen woman hardens it for him I always feared that woman above all the schools of the heathen said our seniors but the Count Heraclion whom I always held for the wisest as well as the most righteous of men alas alas what virtue will withstand when ambition enters the heart fearful truly said Peter is that same lust of power but for him I have never trusted him since he began to be indulgent to those Dalitists too true so does one sin beget another and I consider that indulgence to sinners is the worst of all sins whatsoever not of all surely Reverend Sir said Pambohombley but Peter, taking no noses of the interruption went on to our seniors and now what answer am I to bear back from your wisdom to his holiness let me see, let me see he might, it needs consideration I ought to know more of the state of parties he has of course communicated with the African bishops and tried to unite them with him two months ago but the stiff-necked schismatics are still jealous of him and whole aloof schismatics is too harsh a term, my friend but has he sent to Constantinople he needs a messenger accustomed to courts it was possible, he thought that your experience might undertake the mission me? who am I? alas alas fresh temptations daily let him send by the hand of whom he will and yet where I, at least in Alexandria I might advise from day to day I should certainly see my way clearer and unforeseen chances might arise too Pamboh my friend tink us now that it will be sinful to obey the holy patriarch ha ha said the Pamboh laughing and thou art he who was for fleeing into the desert an hour ago and now, when once thou smet us the battle afar off thou art pawing in the valley like the old war-horse go and God be with thee thou wilt be none the worse for it thou art too old to fall in love too poor to buy a bishopric and too righteous to have one given thee art thou an earnest what did I say to thee in the garden go and see our son and send me news of him ah, shame on my worldly mindedness I had forgotten all this time to inquire for him how is the youth reverent, sir? whom do you mean? Philemon, our spiritual son whom we sent down to youth three months ago, said Pamboh risen to honour he is by this time, I doubt not he? he is gone gone? aye, the wretch, with the curse of Judas on him he had not been with us three days before he beat me openly in the patriarch's court cast off to Christian faith and fled away to the heathen woman Hypatia of whom he is enamoured the two old men looked at each other with blank and horror-stricken faces enamoured of Hypatia, said our senior, said last it is impossible, sob Pamboh the boy must have been treated harshly, unjustly someone has wronged him and he was accustomed only to kindness and could not bear it cruel men that you are and unfaithful stewards the Lord will require the child's blood at your hands aye, said Peter, rising fiercely this is the world's justice blame me, blame the patriarch blame any and every one but the sinner as if a hot head and a hotter heart were not enough to explain it all as if a young fool had never before been bewitched by a fair face oh, my friends, my friends, cried our seniors why revile each other without cause? aye, I only am to blame I advised you, Pamboh, I sent him I ought to have known what was I doing, old whirling, that I am to thrust the poor innocent forth into the temptations of Babylon this comes of all my schemings and my plottings and now his blood will be on my head as if I had not sins enough to bear already I must go and add this over and above all to sell my own Joseph, the son of my old age to the Midianites here I will go with you, now, at once I will not rest till I find him clasp his knees till he pities my grey hairs let Heraclion and Arestes go their way for all I care I will find him, I say oh, Absalom, my son, would to God that I had died for thee, my son, my son